h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

No but you're getting warmer.

In somebody's bedroom? Bathroom? Kitchen?

in the charnel house or ossory

what on earth is an Ossory?

It's where you keep the osses

its a charnel house

in medieval times bodies were buried in the churchyard for about 30 years untill they were just bones then as the gravedigger digs new graves he comes across random bones which are all stacked in the ossary below the church, they are stacked by bone, all thigh bones on one shelf all skulls together, and everyone was secure in the knowladge that they would all jump up whole come judgement day,

that was how hamlet got to talk to the skull or yorrick the jester,

his next stop was the ossory

Ossuary

ok so my spelling is shot

An ossuary would be obvious....

but I didn't klaxon it, so you escape!

and here is a famous example of a very large ossuary

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catacombs_of_Paris

Most however are not so extensive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossuary

There is a slight ever-so-tangental link to bathrooms by way of indoor plumbing.

The famous fate of being walled up in a secret room

By jove - he's got it!

Full explanation coming right up.

I took this QI from the introduction to the translation of The Divine Comedy which I'm currently reading.

"Curiously enough, the adventures of of Dante's manuscript were repeated many years later with their author's own body. which became literally a bone of contention between Florence and Ravenna.

Florence, who had exiled him and forbidden his return on pain of being burnt alive, laid claim to him once he was safely dead and famous. Ravenna, stoutly and with some indignation, rejected the claim, determined that he he who had found peace within her should not be disturbed for the benefit of the city that had not known how to cherish it's greatest son.

Request were made in 1396, in 1429 and in 1476 but were refused. In 1519 a resolute attempt was made, backed by the authority of Pope Leo X himself, to secure the body. This it seemed impossible to resist. The Florentine Envoys arrived and the tomb was opened.

It contained nothing but a few small bones and some withered laurel leaves. The envoys made the best of this to The Pope cautiously observing that they 'found Dante neither in soul or in body and it is supposed that as in his lifetime he journeyed in soul and in body through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, so in death he must have been received body and soul into one of those realms.'

The matter was hushed up, both then and again when in 1782 ( when the tomb was opened again for restoration) In 1865 when the sixth centenary of Dante's birth was being celebrated and the Florentines had once again petitioned for the custody of the remains of the body and for the fifth time had been refused, the opening of the tomb and verification of the remaisn was announced as part of the sex-centenary celebrations.

Now, it seems the cat would be out of the bag at last. And so indeed it was. In the course of some repairs being made to the Bracciaforte Chapel, which backed onto the mausoleum it became necessary to install a pump. the make way for the pump handle it was decided to knock away part of the wall. The workman's pick struck wood. Within it was a skeleton, on the bottom of the chest written in ink.

Dantis ossa denuper revisa die 3 junni 1677
(Dante's bones, revisted 3 June 1677)


And on the lid:

Dantis ossa a me Fre Antonio Santi hic posita Ano 1677 die 18 Octobris.
(Dante's bones, deposited here by me, Fra. Antonia Santi, 18th October 1677)

Presumably it was in 1519 that the Franciscans alarmed at Pope Leo's manoeuvre had extracted the bones and hidden them out of reach of the Florentines. during the intervening one-hundred and fifty years Before Fra. Antonio Santi 'revisited' the remains preparatory before 'depositing' them in the new wall which was erected in 1677 to block the former entrance to the chapel, the bones must have been hidden in the monastery.

the chest with it's inscriptions is in the Bibliotheca Nazionale; the bones, after lying in state for three days in a glass coffin for the veneratino of the people of Ravenna were restored to a Saracophagus, and Ravenna remaisn guardian of her treasure to this day."

Dorethy Leigh Sayers.
p54-p.55 "The Divine Comedy: Hell. Penguin Classics
ISBN: 0140440062

ADDITIONAL BONUS ROUND

Now that you know where Dante was buried in 1677.

Dante's eternal rest has been anything but restful.

So can you say why Dante's remains were buried underground for precisely 21 months less than 100 years later after their discovery in the Bracciaforte chapel?

WW2 protect them from air raids at the end of the war

He's good.

Too good.

Take him outside and have him shot.


+3.

No, please... then we'll be made to guess where he'll be buried, and why...